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FEMINISM IS NOT SAMENESS

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By: Arshita Sharma

If you look feminism up in dictionary, you’d find the following definitions:

 The advocacy of women’s right on the ground of the equality of the sexes 1.

 The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities 2.

 The belief that women should be allowed the same rights, power, and opportunities as

men and be treated in the same way, or the set of activities intended to achieve this
state 3.

Feminism, there at essence, is the equality between men and women, not “sameness.”
Quite so many people offer up the notion that women are not the “same” as men so there
can’t be equality. In other words, since their bodies are different (many say “weaker” and
smaller), and since men and women have different physical abilities, these physical
distinctions mean equality is not achievable.

As the definitions mentioned above, the feminism is about equality, it’s not about
sameness. The word ‘same’ and ‘equal’ are similar, but ‘same ‘can refer more to similar
quality between two things. This usually is not a big difference, but in some sentences, it
makes more sense to use one or the other.

For example: The king and queen do not have the same position, but they have equal

power.

It’s frustrating, in many ways and in many places across our globe, each one of us being
of equal value is still a bold statement even today………………
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Many say that they are not feminist because Feminist ‘hate men’. What is a proper
way to explain them, what feminism truly is? Cite instances.

Little do people know about feminism. Some say they fight for women’s rights; some say
they hate men and whatnot. But sometimes we come across some strange preconceived
notions people have about feminism and feminists.

What I have inferred so far is that, when they say “You’re a feminist”, it’s usually not a
compliment, rather sometimes the tone is similar as to that of saying “You’re a supporter
of terrorism”. Sounds funny but sadly is the truth. Feminists often have to go through the
cold stares of people just because they know feminism from a different perspective. I
would like to draw your attention to a very amusing incident. Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie1, was once in a press conference, promoting her novel. One of the journalists
during the event wanted to give her an advice (an unsolicited one), that she should not
call herself a feminist. When cross questioned by her as to why she shouldn’t, he
answered that feminist are the women who are unhappy because they cannot find
husbands. Well, that was really an amusing yet funny statement.

There is one more such incident. Well, if you are a true feminist, you might not like the a
statement long attributed to television evangelist Pat Robertson 2 has him describing the
90’s feminist agenda. He stated that,

“The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist,
anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill
their children, practice witchcraft and destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

Statements like these smash our conscience right to the side of I-95. My sole purpose of
stating these statements was that the notion about feminists isn’t restrained only to the
derived notion that they hate men. It has expanded to a much more phase wherein, they
are being called witches, being called sad because they can’t find husbands and whatnot.
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For knowing more about such point of views, you can even refer to the website of an
organisation named ‘Save Indian Family Foundation’(SIFF). There you can find some
toxic content about women’s right campaigns leading to a disruption in human rights.

I would like to quote a statement which I saw in their FAQs section , which reads as

“to expose and create awareness about large scale violations of Civil Liberties and Human
Rights in the name of women empowerment in India…”

Women's empowerment initiatives, in their opinion, result in widespread violations of

human rights. I scrolled down to see if there were any clear mentions of the feminist
movement, sensing an underlying hostility to it. Then I found their views on feminists
that said,

“Most feminists are intellectually challenged individuals, with very less academic
grounding. They are basically frustrated angry individuals, who think intolerance and
hate will improve conditions of women in the world. In reality, the condition of women
improves due to technology, which mostly men created. Feminists are also extremely
ungrateful people, who never get satisfied with any improvement in condition of
women.”

I feel that the word “feminism” is very difficult to take in the right sense because it seems
to inherently suggest a preferential treatment of feminine over the masculine, because we
have ‘feminine ‘in the word. I think it is really oversized and misunderstood.

Think about it, whenever you say “I am a feminist” in front of a man, he might take it as a
personal attack to his masculinity. Feminism does not mean to avail every opportunity
provided to prosecute men. I am not well aware about the group-targeted hate. I have not
seen any of the anti-feminists offering any evidence that feminists hate men, and due to
lack of it, it’s harder for me to believe. Even saying that feminists ‘hate’ men, is such a
bold move. Well, it can be a common annoyance experienced by most of the women due
to the misogynistic behaviour of men. But to call such annoyance as hate, is to just stretch
the word beyond its conventional meaning and that too generalizing it for a whole group
is way too much.

The civil rights movement can be the best example I can provide to explain things.
Considering the on-going pattern, some blacks might have developed hatred towards
whites and some women may develop hatred towards men in general. Just as most civil
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rights activists did not hate whites, and many blacks who did do hate, are not civil rights
activists. In a similar way, feminists don’t hate men, and those women who do hate, are
not feminists.

Then why do people say the feminists hate men? A simple fact being that historically
neither civil rights movements nor feminism movement have ever proposed hatred.
When the racists tried to tar the essence of civil rights movement, they defied the logic.
And the same thing continues, when the antifeminists try to tar feminism with the same
stroke of brush, they defy the logic that “Feminists had never hated men”.

It has taken years of efforts by feminists to explain people about the true meaning of
feminism. Yet, some anti-feminists revoke it or misinterpret things. Suggesting measures
for this can be a great deal of task for a student like me, all I can do is, shine some light
on the various instances that had happened in the history. For example, 25 percent of
participants in the 1995 U.N.-sponsored women's conference in Beijing were men, which
was a substantial increase compared to the previous such conference held at Nairobi in
1985 (Radin 1995, 2); 1 Well clearly, these men are not getting the message that feminist
hate men. there has been a surge of feminist and pro-feminist books and articles written
by men who are not getting that same message during the past several years. Working
with the MRA2 groups, feminists have come across the persisting problems that men in
our society are facing. It isn’t that only women are affected by the domestic violence, it
can be either side of the coin.

The bottom line of the text is that, FEMINISTS DON’T HATE MEN, and those who do,
are not feminists.
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What do you think of the view that marriage constitutes slavery for
women, and that freedom for women cannot be won without abolition of
marriage?

Well discussing the question mentioned above, from my point of view, it depends on
individual and the circumstances whether the marriage brings slavery or not.

“Marriage is a great institution- if you like living in institution.”1

A marriage can be a good thing, it can be a source of joy, love and mutual support. But I
wonder why are there lesser number of women workers who are in there 30s-40s. I recalled a
phrase quoted by Late Kenyan Noble Peace Laurette- Wangai Maathai;

“ The higher you go, the fewer woman there are.”

Most of the women, as stats say, quit their jobs after marriage, but some of them start their
career after marriage. So, saying that marriage has curtailed women’s freedom for centuries
and formed a backdrop of women’s oppression for centuries, would obviously not be
justifiable.

The language of marriage is often the language of ownership rather than partnership. In
most of the novels that I have read, or the movies I’ve seen, wherein the main character is
girl, often have an ending where she is either married happily or dead by the end. The movie
“Little Women” is a must watch. It is an adaptation to a novel, “Little Women” by Louisa
May Alcott as classic continues to be relevant and made into numerous adaptations – the
most recent one being Greta Gerwig’s movie by the same name. It’s all about woman from a
woman’s perspective. In the movie, there were several instances, which when I came across,
just hit my conscience. There was dialogue which quoted as “Money is the end and aim of
my mercenary existence.” She said it while she was struggling to sell her stories, so that she
could earn living for her family. Moreover, she wasn’t in any favour of getting married.
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Women linger in the shadows in a world where men are the narrators and protagonists of
their stories, reduced to objects of desire, generosity, and pity. However, Alcott deviates from
this trend by portraying Jo's journey as a hero's journey – one that is typically portrayed by
men. Jo’s father, who was working in military, once wrote to his daughters that his daughters
would.

“Fight their enemies bravely, conquer themselves so beautifully and when I come back
to them, I may wonder and be prouder of my little women.”

In the movie, Jo was quite determined not to get married, and even accomplished her goals
without the support of any other. But contrastingly, her sister finds calmness and happiness
after getting married……..

Women were an ornament of society. Marriage is an economic proposition as the moment

they get married, her money will belong to her husband and even her children would be his
property. In such situations a marriage is not seen as romantic but horrid. Why do we expect
her to fulfil her ‘wifely’ duty?

Is marriage bringing slavery? I would like you to think of a situation. A woman is unmarried
at a certain age. Our society teaches her to see it as her personal failure. Its easy for us to say,
“Oh but women can’t say no to all of this.” So why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage,
when it’s simply mercenary for them. Not all woman like domestic work, but then she has to
be a “good wife material”, “very homely”, “very kind” and whatnot. See cooking for
example, “It isn’t that women are born with cooking gene or is it so because over years they
have been socialized to see cooking as their rule?”. That’s what our culture has to offer?

There has never been a best of time to be a woman. Never have the women had as many
opportunities as they do now. So I think it’s up to individuals to delve upon matters
differently. At last, I would say, marriage can be partial slavery to one, but at the same time it
can also bring happiness. It’s a great saying that secret to happiness is that here’s no secret.